Lunchbox Promises
by bamboo72498
Summary: One Shot. Ella Greene is in pre-school.


**Hey guys! It seems like i haven't been on this side of FanFiction in a long while. But i wanted to make it up to y'all by giving you this. It's a little Ella story i wrote today while doing math homework. I hope you like it!**

**Enjoy!**

**Disclamor: Not mine; just borrow them on occasion. **

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><p>Ella was having a cloudy day.<p>

It didn't start off as a cloudy day; it had been a very sunny one! She was picked to lead calendar time and got to sit in the teacher's special chair. Then they made a project with the leaves that had fallen off the trees in the playground. Then they went into the Big School and had library time where the teacher read a story and they got to get a book.

What made it cloudy was that mommy broke her promise. Mommy had said she would be back a lunch time.

It was lunchtime; and no mommy.

Ella sat at her table with her friends eating out of her Cinderella lunch box: A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, grapes, a strawberry yogurt tube and some cookies for desert. It was all really good, but Ella couldn't concentrate. She kept looking up at the door, hoping it would open and mommy would come in. But after all her classmates had finished they lunches and were playing at their centers, she was still sitting at her table; her lunch barely eaten.

"What's wrong Ella? Not hungry today?" One of her teachers, Miss Lorie asked, kneeling on the floor next to her chair.

"I can't eat lunch until mommy gets here; we always eat lunch together," Ella responds, looking at her teacher.

"Well why don't we put everything back in your lunch box; to keep it fresh until your mommy gets here?" Miss Lorie asks.

Ella shakes her head, her braids bouncing. "No mommy will be here soon," she nods, not letting her teacher put her food away.

"Alright," Lorie sighs, standing up. She walks away leaving Ella at her table, sitting very quietly, waiting for her mom.

Ella waits for a long time, still watching the door, so long that she misses getting to play with the blocks and on the swing her teacher hung from the ceiling.

"Ella, it's time to clean up now," Miss Lorie says coming back over to her.

"No!" Ella shouts. "I can't clean up! Mommy said she would be here at lunchtime and if I clean up that means lunchtime is over and mommy broke her promise!" She can feel tears in her eyes, making everything blurry to see and her cheeks wet. She falls onto her teacher, hoping a hug would make things better.

"Oh, Ella," teacher sighs, rubbing the girl's back. "It will be alright."

"Why is Ella sad?" Her friend Carly asks, coming over to the table.

"She misses her mommy," Miss Lorie tells her, still rubbing Ella's back.

"Oh," Carly whispers. "It's ok Ella, Mommy will be back after school," she tells her friend.

Ella sits up, her eyes and face red from crying, hair coming out of her braids. "But she promised to be here at lunchtime; she never breaks a promise," Ella says, looking down at her black Mary Jane's and white ruffle socks; Mommy let her pick clothes today.

Mommy told her she was a big girl now: she got to go to school and dance class and pick out her own clothes; babies didn't get to do that.

If mommy came now and saw her crying, would that mean she wasn't a big girl anymore?

Ella can't let that happen. She _is_ a big girl, and big girls don't cry at school.

She wipes her nose on the long sleeve of her purple flowered dress, turns back around and puts her un-eaten lunch back in her lunchbox. She stands up, pushes in her chair like the teacher says to do and walks over to her cubby where she leaves her lunch next to her backpack and jacket. Then she goes back to her class who are sitting on the carpet listening to a story. She finds her spot next to Benny, a new kid who talks in Spanish and gets to have a special talking class with a teacher from the Big School.

She listens to the story and participates in their closing circle time before watching as her friends, one by one, get picked up by their mommies and daddies.

She's reading a book and doesn't notice the door open, or the person who walks in.

"Ella? Are you ready to go?"

Ella looks up at the familiar voice and when she sees who it is, she throws down her book, jumps up and runs.

"Mommy!" she shouts, running into her mom's arms and getting a big hug.

"Hello my love; I missed you," Elizabeth says, setting her daughter back on her feet.

"I missed you too," Ella smiles.

Even though mommy had broken her promise, Carly was right: she did come back after school!


End file.
